The year is 1987, thrash metal is in its heyday, Metallica are preparing to release "?And Justice For All" and Chuck Schuldiner is about to put the beginning of his glorious career as a musician. This is the man, who decided that metal should take a deadly shape, crating an album of not only musical, but of historic value. This is considered by many the first death metal album and I would pretty much agree with them. For the first time the lyrical concept deals with desecrating, brutal killing, a lot of blood and a lot of death.

You know I really love albums on which I can hear the bass really distinctly. Well, Scream Bloody Gore is one of those albums. There are a couple of things about reviewing this album and the album itself that I think are funny. First, I have never paid attention to that distinct bass sound before I decided to review this album. Second, I started this review from this exact point, with no introduction. And third, this great raw bass sound comes from the band that used to rehearse, record, and play shows without a bassist in the early days. As Chuck once said, "Two guitars and drums, no bass...just complete raw metal." Well, fortunately bass is present on this one, and it's actually a very important feature, which adds some extra heaviness that young Chuck definitely wanted to hear on his first record.

This is one of the best examples of a transition between finely tuned thrash metal and raw death metal. It's also death's first album, and a sign of great things to come. I personally thought there were a few too many songs here...

Definitely a total classic, not just of extreme metal, but of metal generally. Along with Individual Thought Patterns, this is my fave album from Death. Much as that album set the standard for all tech death bands to follow, this one set a new standard for visceral barbarity in metal at the time. And of course, it helps that the songs are all stone cold classics! "Torn To Pieces" has to be my fave though! xD

If by "not that good" you mean completely dreadful, then I'll have to agree with you. Unfortunately, Chuck's voice has, for me, always been what kept this album from being highly addictive. Fortunately on Leprosy the riffing is good enough for me to ignore the subpar vocals and become completely immersed in the music, but the rest of Death's discography would definitely have benefited from a different vocalist. His singing is definitely at its' worst on TSOP though, where Marcel best put it as sounding like a helium influenced Donald Duck

If by "not that good" you mean completely dreadful, then I'll have to agree with you. Unfortunately, Chuck's voice has, for me, always been what kept this album from being highly addictive. Fortunately on Leprosy the riffing is good enough for me to ignore the subpar vocals and become completely immersed in the music, but the rest of Death's discography would definitely have benefited from a different vocalist. His singing is definitely at its' worst on TSOP though, where Marcel best put it as sounding like a helium influenced Donald Duck